What is temporary marriage?

The questioner : All right; what is the difference now between temporary marriage and temporary marriage? I mean, what is the prohibition in temporary marriage?

The Shaykh : The prohibition in temporary marriage is that a Muslim man marries a Muslim woman or a woman from the People of the Book for a period they agree upon. When the period ends, the contract is invalid and she becomes forbidden to him.

The questioner : And there is no waiting period, no inheritance, and no temporary marriage?

The Shaykh : Yes, in any case, this is off-topic; because temporary marriage was permissible previously at the beginning of Islam, then it was forbidden permanently.

The questioner : What did you say, our Shaykh?

The Shaykh : There are people among the scholars who issued a fatwa permitting temporary marriage out of dire necessity, and this came from Saudi Arabia itself. Did you hear this?

The questioner : I heard from those before us that it was permissible in Saudi Arabia itself; they would write the contract for you before you enter certain places.

The Shaykh : Strange.

The questioner : He mentions among the streets, the Minister’s Street, saying to me next to my house, a person I trust says: there was a man next to my house, meaning a man standing voluntarily at the building door who would write you a contract, you would go out, spend your time, and come out, but as for the validity of this... or whether it is invalid, I do not know, I mean.

The Shaykh : This picture, I truly am hearing it for the first time, but the fatwa I heard from the Saudi radio in years past, from a man who is naturally not Saudi but from my country, was that these young men who go to those lands are permitted to marry by temporary marriage out of dire necessity, and they relied on that on a fatwa from Ibn Taymiyyah, the Shaykh al-Islam. So, for some reason, I mentioned the previous detail; there is absolutely no need for one to marry by temporary marriage, which is forbidden by the text of the authentic hadith in Muslim: , there is no dire necessity that justifies this marriage, because of what we mentioned earlier, that a Muslim marries this Christian woman and lives with her as long as he wishes, and if he wishes to divorce her, let him divorce her, so why would one put himself in a rat’s hole, as they say, and come to marry a temporary marriage, which is called temporary marriage, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade it until the Day of Resurrection?
So, there is absolutely no dire necessity that can be imagined except in the religion of the Christians, who have no divorce, whereas we have explicit divorce: , and he (peace and blessings be upon him) said, clarifying that divorce is in the hand of the man: . Then, one benefit of this legal ruling is that a Muslim marries a Christian woman in a normal marriage, not a temporary marriage, because he is obligated, according to the school of those who permit temporary marriage, to divorce her when the period ends, whereas if he marries her in a lawful marriage, he has the choice, and it often happens that some young men find the Christian woman they married to be better than many Muslim girls, so they return with her to their country and live with her a happy life; therefore, this person who lived as long as he lived with that Christian wife in the land of disbelief has the right to keep her if he wishes, and to return with her to his country, no, by Allah, there will be problems, his family, his father, and his mother will rise up against him, and so on, yes, he will divorce her. Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him), his father ordered him to divorce his wife, and Umar, and what do you know of Umar? Umar al-Faruq, to whom the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , ordered his son Abdullah ibn Umar, who was pious and scrupulous, to divorce his wife for a reason not mentioned in the narration, but Umar knew it, so Abdullah ibn Umar went to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and he was naturally concerned with obeying his father, but he was now between the millstones, between continuing to enjoy his lawful wife and obeying his father and losing her; he was confused, so he went to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and told him the story, and he said to him: .
So, if we imagine a person who married a Christian woman there in a lawful marriage, and he wanted to return with her to his country, but his father and mother forbade it, saying to him: you must divorce her; he can divorce her, and he can keep her; how is that? Because we fear that his soul will be filled with regret over her if he divorces her, and he will fall into a problem that was not in his mind or his calculation, and at that time, we cannot imagine that the father of this person who disobeyed him is in the position of Umar ibn al-Khattab, who places things in their proper place, and we know that many Muslim young men who marry in these lands live in a permanent hell because of the bad morals of the parents, and they order me to divorce her and get rid of her, and so on, and what is the evidence? We did not like her! All right; are you married to her or is he? We did not like her! These are unjust fathers, they are not in the position of Umar ibn al-Khattab; therefore, we cannot apply the word as a general text, here is the secret, I mean, in the matter; so, the matter has breadth and ease in it.

Another questioner : He does not obey them.

The Shaykh : If there is harm in his obedience, ah, he does not obey them, and we have a very great hadith that I consider one of the hadiths that opens a door of legal politics for the knowledgeable Muslim.
And often we are forced, when we are asked, many come and say: So-and-so, I married her on the condition that she wears the hijab and adheres to the Shari'ah, and so on, and we agreed on this before the contract, and when the contract was completed, we asked her for the condition, she said: yes, earlier, still tomorrow, just let us enter, and she entered and he entered upon her, and so on, ah, still not, and so on, and still and still, and the first and second child came, and she is saying what? Still, still, and he is still hoping for her obedience, until what? The burden of pregnancy weighed on him, what am I doing, Professor? Divorce her, and what do I do with the children? You know what to do with the children, what do you want me to do? I tell you: divorce her; because the Shari'ah orders the husband that if his wife is of bad character, he should divorce her, so if he keeps her, his keeping her will be the cause of his supplication not being raised to the sky, so it is narrated: you are the one who threw yourself into this problem, you want to treat the matter now, I wonder if divorcing her is worse than keeping her? You are the one who must judge, not me, I do not say... May Allah make your outcome and our outcome good, this is haste, what do you know, what is his relationship with her, what are her morals? What are her children’s morals? And so on, so he is the one who judges; therefore, we leave the matter to him, following that hadith I mentioned earlier, and its text is: that a man came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: O Messenger of Allah, my wife does not turn back the hand of a toucher. He said: . He said: I love her. He said: . Here is the point.
The point: at first he said to him: , and there is no doubt that he (peace and blessings be upon him), when he ordered him to divorce her, ordered him for a legal reason, otherwise the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is too great to separate a man from his wife without a legal reason, so we must imagine that there is indeed a legal reason that necessitated the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) saying to this man: , and then the answer changed when he said to him: I love her, O Messenger of Allah. He said: if you love her, then keep her. Why does this answer differ from the previous answer?
The Shaykh : First: we must know the meaning of "does not turn back the hand of a toucher"; the scholars have two opinions; one of them is that she is a woman who is compliant to every suitor.

Another questioner : That the woman...?

The Shaykh : Compliant and obedient to the request of any suitor, and this undoubtedly contains a great accusation by the husband against this wife, and this requires him to do one of two things; either mutual oath-swearing or bringing witnesses.
The second opinion, which is the stronger one, is that the phrase "no hand is turned back" means that she is a naive, simple, and superficial woman who lacks awareness. A young man, perhaps a relative such as her maternal cousin, paternal cousin, or maternal aunt's son, might sit and talk to her in a normal manner, but he intends to take advantage of her, even if it is just a touch or a pinch. During the conversation, for example, he might say to her, "Come on, let's go," or "What do you need?" She does not understand his intent; why? Because she is naive and inattentive. However, the husband is nearly split in two with jealousy, as he sees this superficiality and simplicity in her and becomes jealous. So he complained about her to the Messenger (peace be upon him), who said: . If the first meaning had been intended, the ruling would have changed; he would have established the mutual oath-swearing (li'an) between them, which requires permanent separation, or he would have brought four witnesses. Since the Messenger (peace be upon him) did not ask the man who said, "My wife does not turn back a hand," for witnesses, it is because this is an accusation of adultery, which merits flogging, and there is no mutual oath-swearing. Therefore, the intended meaning is the second one. The second meaning is certainly not adultery, nor is it one of the preliminaries to adultery, as indicated by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in his saying: .